Melander2012

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Melander2012
BibType ARTICLE
Key Melander2012
Author(s) Helen Melander
Title Knowing how to play the game of jump rope: Participation and stancetaking in a material environment
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Games, Play, Participation, Stance Taking
Publisher
Year 2012
Language
City
Month
Journal Journal of Pragmatics
Volume 44
Number 11
Pages 1434–1456
URL Link
DOI 10.1016/j.pragma.2012.06.018
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

In this study the relations between knowledge, affect, and social organization are explored using as data a video recording of a jump rope activity. The analyses focus on how epistemic and affective stance interplay in the constitution of social order. In the activity, the participants position themselves as knowing and unknowing through talk and embodied action. Knowing is tied to the handling of game-relevant artifacts, the spatial configuration of the game, as well as rules for turn-taking. Language use is indexical with frequent references to embodied actions and the material environment. When disputing over problematic moves the participants re-enact previous actions, thus displaying not only knowledge of how the game should be played, but also taking a forceful affective stance toward each other. This interplays with epistemic stance so that the participants and their actions are evaluated in different ways, thus leading to a local social hierarchy in which one participant is excluded from the game. Such phenomena shed light on epistemic and affective stances and how they figure into the organization of action and social order in the midst of children's games.

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